Challenge Accepted

Pastor Pete has challenged the congregation of Rise Community Church to journal (in whatever preferred fashion) and record revelations and convictions of the Holy Spirit. Doing so will make it harder to forget and keep us accountable.

Lately, I’ve really been wrestling with who God really is rather than the misconceptions I’ve created over the last 20+ years.

I’m no longer satisfied to limit my faith to “sin management” nor as a moral compass. What I’ve ultimately come to understand is that my relationship with God begins and ends with just that. I need to focus on spending time with Him without ulterior motives. That means I don’t want to only talk at Him. I don’t want to bring only my decisions before Him just to get His sage advice. I don’t want to only complain to Him when things aren’t going my way.

What I want, what I really really want, is Him and only Him. I want to enjoy Him in His Presence and just be together. I’ve come to realize that the ultimate point of our faith is just that relationship between God and ourselves.

The rest is just sugar.

We know the two most important commandments are to love God and love people. The ten commandments were boiled down to these because all the dos and don’ts that we’re so easily distracted by come naturally when you follow those main two. When you can simply and utterly love God and maintain that close relationship, everything else just comes naturally.

There’s no need to worry about our sins and ask for forgiveness just as many times.

There’s no need to worry about how others might judge us.

There will be no desire to compare our lives with others.

None of that matters when it’s just us and God. Everything pales in comparison to just being together.

He literally needs and wants to be closer than your best friend.

When I’m hanging out with my best friends, I don’t need to feel guilty for falling short of their expectations. They know me. I know them. We know each other’s intentions and goals. From time to time, of course, we have to reconcile between each other when something comes between us, but those times are few and far between. They become even less frequent when we realize that we can just let certain things go. Why even waste time revisiting an issue that neither of us is still hanging onto?

That’s what my ultimate desire is for my relationship with God. Well, that to the nth degree.